This primarily addresses the circuits community...

I have been playing (or trying to play) with both magic and ocean.  I
was wondering if there are any free VHDL simulators available or being
worked on for Linux.  If so, what about synthesis tools?

If I'm asking something outrageous, please tell me so...

While I'm on the subject, and I know this isn't the proper group but I
know there are a lot of hardware weenies out there like me, is there
an emacs major mode for VHDL floating around?

Thanks in advance,

Mark

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VHDL, logic synthesis, router, layout editor, layout extraction
etc.....

just go at ftp.ibp.fr ( alliance sub-directory ) and get
or the sources, or the linux binaries for FREE..

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o---------------------------------------------------------------o

: This primarily addresses the circuits community...

: I have been playing (or trying to play) with both magic and ocean.  I
: was wondering if there are any free VHDL simulators available or being
: worked on for Linux.  If so, what about synthesis tools?

: If I'm asking something outrageous, please tell me so...

: While I'm on the subject, and I know this isn't the proper group but I
: know there are a lot of hardware weenies out there like me, is there
: an emacs major mode for VHDL floating around?

: Thanks in advance,

: Mark

tools :-)

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: I have been playing (or trying to play) with both magic and ocean.  I
: was wondering if there are any free VHDL simulators available or being
: worked on for Linux.  If so, what about synthesis tools?

Yes there is. Get the Alliance-2.0 package. You can ftp the source
from: ftp.ibp.fr
You will find it in /ibp/softs/masi/alliance

Alliance is aimed at VLSI synthesis but if that is not your goal
you can still use the VHDL simulator.. BTW, it is a great package.

don

: While I'm on the subject, and I know this isn't the proper group but I
: know there are a lot of hardware weenies out there like me, is there
: an emacs major mode for VHDL floating around?

I would like to know this :)

Bardo

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91405 ORSAY CEDEX FRANCE                        

Let me tell you what you can do in Alliance: Boolean functions,
flip flops, muxes. That is all. No conditional statement (like if...then),
no sequential statement (like process), no file I/O (so don't expect to
create test bench), and no arithmatic operations (like + - * /).  
Overall, you can not do behavi{*filter*}modeling in Alliance.

Worset of all, all files in document directory were empty.

I wish I was wrong.  Using Alliance would save me $3K to buy Model
Tech's package.  Again, it totally depends on what you are expecting out
of Alliance.  In term of a design modeling, I suggest you stay away
from Alliance.

Albert

Magic
IRSIM
Gemini
WireC

with the rest of the functions filled in by Berkeley tools. Oftimes
there will be one or two commercial tools tossed into the mix as well,
most commonly Viewlogic, HSPICE, or Ledit -- although these
alternatives only work if your cheap platform of choice isn't a Linux
PC but a reconditioned Sun, to my knowledge (reconditioned Suns are
very competitive platforms for this application).

The real niche of the Chipmunk tools is when you are doing designs out
of the mainstream ...

                                                        --john lazzaro
                                                          chipmunk maintainer

Have you used Cal Tech's Chipmunk VLSI package? This was ported to Linux
a couple years ago. It's available via ftp from somewhere at cal tech.

: Could somebody tell me firstly what these packages do and secondly where I can
: get them from (I think that could be a popular request). Versions for Windows
: or Linux or HP/UX would be preferred by me (especially linux). Thanks in
: advance...
: --
: John Leslie

I've used Magic and IRSIM, but neither is a VHDL tool.  Magic is a
simple but very easy to use layout editor.  It does on-the-fly DRC (it
uses the one variable, lambda method) and some autorouting.  I've
actually used it to produce a simple stack cpu.  It's pretty fast and
comes with a nice tutorial, but best of all is its low price - free.

IRSIM is a timing tool, a pretty simple one compared with commercial
ones, (like pearl - the only one I'm actually familiar with).  But it
works well with Magic - it does timing on the actual layout.  It can
do things like longest phase to phase delay, etc.

Anyway, you can get Linux binaries of these two from
sunsite.unc.edu in
/pub/Linux/apps/circuits (INDEX)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
irsim.tar.z              event-driven logic-level simulator for MOS circuits
magic63p3-run.tar.gz     VLSI graphical layout tool [bin]
magic63p3-src.tar.gz     VLSI graphical layout tool [src]

Magic requires X obviously.  These tools are great for learning how to
do VLSI CMOS design/layout.  I suspect they're mostly used by
university students.

Guy Maor